Is your company using structured data and rich snippets in the SERPs? (If you are not familiar with structured data, it is basically a way to explain the content of your website to the search engines in a trusted, structured format.)
On April 24th, Google implemented the Penguin update, a new update to the Panda algorithm. The Penguin update is an attempt to reward websites that are well-optimized and penalize sites that are over-optimized.
Officially, Google states that Penguin affected only 3.1% of queries in English. However, the sites that were hit saw large drops in their search rankings and traffic. Within hours of the implementation, “Penguined” sites saw drops in search engine traffic in excess of 70% and those with #1 rankings for major keywords no longer registered on the top 10 pages in Google.
Although our clients did not experience any drops due to the Penguin update, we have had several new clients sign up with Volacci following the April 24th algorithm change that did see large drops (these websites were not intentionally trying to manipulate the search engines). Through our analysis of these “Penguined” sites we found that there were several similarities between them. Before your site falls prey to the Penguin, note the following five “strategies” you should avoid to protect your Internet marketing investment:
Out with the Old, In with the New
To boil it down, Google wants you to care about your link profile and your content. Old strategies that used to be effective are now being scrutinized, and penalized.
If you were affected by Penguin or need to stay ahead of the next algorithm update, contact us at [email protected] to learn more.
In today’s social-savvy society, the phrase “your reputation proceeds you” is limited to the few and famous no longer, as any and every interesting piece of content is instantly spread across the Web within minutes, literally.
If you are making your way up your industry ladder, you will most likely get ‘googled’ hundreds of times throughout your career during meetings, interviews, conventions, speaking engagements, or whenever you so happen to drop a business card on a new contact. You want to come out smelling like roses, don’t you?!
It's that time of year again, folks.
The time when Austin fills up with 300 Drupal fans and professionals and you can barely drive down I-35 without seeing a bumper sticker that says "Drupal Like it's Hot" or "My Other Car is a Drupal"....
The robots.txt file is a file that sits at the root level of your website and asks spiders and bots to behave themselves when they’re on your site. You can take a look at it by pointing your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txt.
Think of it like an electronic No Trespassing sign that can easily tell the search engines not to crawl a certain directory or page of your site.
Having a search engine-optimized robots.txt file is very important for SEO. It clearly established rules and expectations for Google’s spiders, which directly affects what web pages rank and don’t rank. Keep reading for more robots.txt knowledge than you thought you’d ever need on how to search engine-optimize the Drupal robots.txt file.
In nearly all facets of the search engine optimization process, you learn that adding content to your site and to the external strings of the Web will help build your authority as a business and brand. But there are instances you want to remove content from your site. For example: promotional pages that are expired, products and services you no longer offer, a website redesign, outdated contact information, confidential information, or even something that you’ve been requested to take down by another entity.
Did you know that 78% of people who use the Internet are located in non-English speaking, global markets? With American businesses leaning on their websites more and more for generating leads and sales, it would just seem like common sense that they would want to go after the whole pie, not just 22% of it.
More websites than care to admit make horrendous mistakes with search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. These mistakes range from targeting the wrong keywords and keyword stuffing to hiring a black hat SEO company or ignoring the critical advice of honest SEO advisors. Whatever the crime, your site always pays the price in rankings.
A front page ranking doesn’t happen overnight, and if it does, more people than just your mother will be questioning this development. Implementing sound SEO initiatives on your site is a process. Volacci has a 120-Point SEO process that ensures our clients’ websites are finely-tuned for search engine rankings. This process can take weeks, but more likely months, to get a website running in superior search engine condition.
While I cannot reveal all 120 points of our SEO process to you (unless you become a client!), I will give you some tips to tune your site for superior search rankings. Join me after the jump for Seven Search Engine Optimization tips for finely-tuned search performance.
By now, you have probably read tons of material on how important keyword usage is for your rankings, but its not the end all be all. Yes, keyword usage is incredibly important and the foundation of your SEO campaign, but is counts for only half, maybe less, of Google’s infamous algorithm. The Google algorithm primarily weighs two factors: relevance, which is a function of how keywords are used on a site or page; and PageRank, which is a function of how your site or page is woven into the Web’s massive map of links. There are other factors, but today we are going to focus on just one: PageRank.
When using keywords, you can do everything right to improve the relevance of your site and pages, yet still not rank on the first of Google’s SERPs. If you are targeting highly competitive keywords, which means tons of other sites are trying to rank for the same keywords, you need to improve your PageRank to break through the clutter and get ranked on the first page of Google.
Join me after the jump for three ways to increase your PageRank and rank on the first page of Google.
Landing Page Optimization (LPO) is very critical to the success of any profit-seeking website. Whether you run PPC, email marketing, or organic SEO campaigns, any and all internet marketing efforts need to begin and end with LPO.
You should be spending the same amount of time developing the landing page as you do the marketing offer that drove traffic to the page in the first place. This is a common oversight that many websites make when developing their online campaigns.
As an internet marketing firm, Volacci has learned firsthand what does and does not work. Join me after the jump for 5 LPO tactics that can take your website's conversion rates from good to great!
